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Scurvy: How a Surgeon, a Mariner, and a Gentlemen Solved the Greatest Medical Mystery of the Age of Sail
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Product Description
From the earliest recorded appearance of the disease in the sixteenth century, to the eighteenth century, where a man had only half a chance of surviving the scourge, to the early nineteenth century, when the British conquered scurvy and successfully blockaded the French and defeated Napoleon, Scurvy is a medical detective story for the ages, the fascinating true story of how James Lind (the surgeon), James Cook (the mariner), and Gilbert Blane (the gentleman) worked separately to eliminate the dreaded affliction.
Scurvy is an evocative journey back to the era of wooden ships and sails, when the disease infiltrated every aspect of seafaring life: press gangs "recruit" mariners on the way home from a late night at the pub; a terrible voyage in search of riches ends with a hobbled fleet and half the crew heaved overboard; Cook majestically travels the South Seas but suffers an unimaginable fate. Brimming with tales of ships, sailors, and baffling bureaucracy, Scurvy is a rare mix of compelling history and classic adventure story.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #256511 in Books
- Published on: 2005-08-01
- Released on: 2005-07-14
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Paperback
- 272 pages
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
From the 15th to the mid-19th centuries, scurvy caused more deaths at sea than storms, shipwrecks, combat and all other diseases combined, according to Bown (Sightseers and Scholars). In this intriguing book, Bown tells how the preventative and cure-a diet that included fresh fruits and vegetables, which were rarely carried on sailing ships-was finally identified. For years, the mysterious illness was treated with oil of vitriol, bloodletting, sea water, wort of malt and, occasionally, lemon juice. Even after James Lind, a surgeon's mate in Britain's Royal Navy, showed in 1747 that citrus was the effective remedy, his treatment was not taken seriously, because he couldn't explain why it worked. On three voyages, from 1768 to 1781, Captain James Cook tested a wide array of antiscorbutics as preventatives, including fresh vegetables and citrus juice, but evidence of the effectiveness of the fresh produce was inconclusive, and the Royal Navy persisted in relying on the other, worthless, remedies. Scurvy continued to decimate ships' crews, and Bown speculates that failure to arrest the disease had global repercussions and may have been the reason for Britain's defeat in the American Revolution. Finally, in 1795, Gilbert Blaine, a gentleman physician, persuaded the admiralty to issue daily rations of lemon juice on all Royal Navy ships; although the active compound, ascorbic acid, was not isolated until more than a century later, this simple procedure kept the British sailors healthy and enabled them to defeat Napoleon at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Bown tells the story well, and he presents a vivid picture of life aboard ship during the age of sail-brutal captains; dangerous work; rotting food; filthy, overcrowded living quarters; and the ultimate horror, scurvy. Illus. not seen by PW.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
The plague of eighteenth-century seafarers was scurvy, the consequence of the lack of vitamin C in the everyday diet. A condition in which body tissues break down, scurvy can kill quickly yet can be reversed even more quickly by drinking lemon or orange juice or eating fresh green vegetables. Some earlier mariners had learned that lemon juice cured scurvy, but no one in authority realized it could prevent it, too. It took the successive labors, over the course of 60 years, of surgeon James Lind, explorer James Cook, and aristocrat (and also physician) Gilbert Blane to force acknowledgment that scurvy was preventable. Bown's fluent history shows that medicine of the time wasn't yet experimental and analytic, or even materialistic, but still sought spiritual or essential reasons for disease. After Blane's triumph, scurvy-free British seamen destroyed Napoleon's numerically superior but scurvy-ridden navy, whereas 30 years earlier, Britain's sick sailors were overmatched by France's much larger (though also sick) forces, putting the kibosh on Britain's retention of its 13 American colonies. Excellent medical--and naval--history. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
About the Author
Customer Reviews
an excellent book
This is a well-written, entertaining book. I read it mostly due to my interest in sea-faring and the "age of sail," as the author terms it. However, I found myself enjoying it just as much for the story it tells about the gradual discovery of a cure for a disease that crippled sea-faring nations for centuries. Particularly enlightening is the story of the bureacracy, the British Admiralty, that stubbornly ignored the potential cure, even as it suffered tremendous losses for its ignorance, and how vital privilege and influence is in challenging and changing such an establishment. The book's only minor flaw is that it focuses primarily on one country, Britain, without elaborating on how or why France or Spain failed to find a cause and a cure. I would recommend it highly.
Not as deep as it could have been.
This book tackles a fascinating subject; scurvy which killed 100,000s of sailors. Many passages illuminate the causes and affects of this terrible disease, which quite simply results from a lack of vitamin C and causes the bond of the body to weaken, causing terrible bleeding in the gums and from the skin. The cure for scurvy was not understood for 100s of years and this book takes the reader on a quick stroll through this history. Why did Eskimoes, who ate no vegetables, not suffer scurvy? This question was posed by the English whose aptitude for eating limes gave them the nickname `limies' since limes appeared to counteract scurvy. Why did preserved meat not work? Why did cooked meat or limes not work? These questions were eventually answered by the man who found out the truth behind the disease. This is the books central theme and actually its main detraction. Since the book focuses on the men, reminiscent of the recent book on the OED, it detracts slightly from the overall history of scurvy. Nevertheless this is a welcomed addition on the subject, and a fascinating read.
Seth J. Frantzman
Beating Scurvy
I've always been fascinated by the age of sail, particularly the period during the Napoleonic Wars. An incredible test of nations and the men at sea occurred during that war. Consequently I have enjoyed reading numerous fictional accounts of that war from authors such as Patrick O'Brien, Dudley Pope, and C.S. Forester. What I never fully grasped were all the reasons why the Brits were superior to the French and Spanish navies. Those authors always talked up the better training and discipline as the reason. They also pointed to the leadership purges of the French navy that occurred during the revolution. However, I intuitively recognized that there was something more to the story. The cure for scurvy was that something more. And the Brits got there first.
Brown does a fantastic job of outlining the history of scurvy and the quest for a cure in a very interesting and readable fashion. Outlining the course of scurvy at sea during the voyages of Anson and Cook, he is able to put a cost on scurvy. He details how rigid social structures prevented remedies from being taken seriously and reluctance by the Admiralty to invest in its men in terms of hygiene and diet permitted this affliction to rage for much longer than it should have. It is shocking to read how the medical professionals of the day diagnosed patients despite the evidence. When it appears that they are on the very verge of a cure, they seem to loose touch with logic and regress to useless remedies.
Brown tells the story of scurvy very well.
